Classifying gait patterns into homogeneous groups could enhance communication among healthcare providers, clinical decision making and clinical trial designs in boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). Sutherland’s classification has been developed 40 years ago. Ever since, the state-of-the-art medical care has improved and boys with DMD are now longer ambulatory. Therefore, the gait classification requires an update. The overall aim was to develop an up-to-date, valid DMD gait classification. A total of 137 three-dimensional gait analysis sessions were collected in 30 boys with DMD, aged 4.6–17 years. Three classes were distinguished, which only partly aligned with increasing severity of gait deviations. Apart from the mildly affected pattern, two more severely affected gait patterns were found, namely the tiptoeing pattern and the flexion pattern with distinct anterior pelvic tilt and posterior trunk leaning, which showed most severe deviations at the ankle or at the proximal segments/joints, respectively. The agreement between Sutherland’s and the current classification was low, suggesting that gait pathology with the current state-of-the-art medical care has changed. However, overlap between classes, especially between the two more affected classes, highlights the complexity of the continuous gait changes. Therefore, caution is required when classifying individual boys with DMD into classes.

将步态模式分为同质组可以加强医疗保健提供者之间的沟通、杜氏肌营养不良症 (DMD) 男孩的临床决策和临床试验设计。 Sutherland 的分类已于 40 年前制定。从那时起，最先进的医疗保健水平得到了改善，患有 DMD 的男孩现在可以行走的时间更长了。因此，步态分类需要更新。总体目标是开发最新、有效的 DMD 步态分类。总共收集了 30 名 4.6-17 岁 DMD 男孩的 137 次三维步态分析。区分了三个类别，这些类别仅部分与步态偏差的严重程度增加一致。除了轻度受影响的模式外，还发现了两种更严重受影响的步态模式，即踮脚模式和具有明显骨盆前倾和躯干后倾的屈曲模式，其中在踝关节或近端节段/关节处表现出最严重的偏差，分别。萨瑟兰的分类与当前的分类之间的一致性较低，这表明当前最先进的医疗护理的步态病理学已经发生了变化。然而，类之间的重叠，特别是两个受影响较大的类之间的重叠，凸显了连续步态变化的复杂性。因此，在对个别患有 DMD 的男孩进行分类时需要谨慎。